Dtrace error message building on linux

> Every time I build from scratch, I see the following lines when I run make:
>
> Making signal interposition lib...
> Making SA debugger back-end...
> **NOTICE** Dtrace support disabled: /usr/include/sys/sdt.h not found
> Compiling /w/jjg/work/tl/hotspot/src/share/vm/runtime/vm_version.cpp
>
>
> My question is, why do I see this as an error during "make"? Shouldn't this siutation be detected during "configure", and the appropriate actions taken at that time, to prevent any errors during "make"?

This is on Ubuntu Linux.